Applying Semantic Web Rules to Business-to-Business Negotiation

Abstract

Negotiation automation deals with business processes that frequently require the input of human knowledge to achieve their goal – that of agreement in negotiations. However, traditional business-to-business (B2B) vocabularies on the Web are limited to data exchange, and do not extend to the sharing and production of knowledge. In this paper, we explore the future of the Web: the semantic Web. We study the Electronic Business using Extensible Markup Language (ebXML) platform and introduce a rule base by which negotiation parties can dynamically communicate the logic of their negotiation strategies through the definition of semantic Web rules. Using standardized semantic Web technologies for all of the negotiation parties, we present the application of negotiation automation to agendas and explanations. In particular, explanations take advantage of the technology that allows rules (or human logic) to operate in remote systems and to interface between human beings and machines.